Vol.

II (LXIV)
No. 1/2012

28 - 34

About praise and its efficiency in education

Emil Stan*
Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiesti, Bucuresti Blvd., 39, Ploiesti, 100680, Romania

Abstract
This study aims at analyzing the contexts in which the praises are used as rewards (family, school,
group of friends), types of praises which are used, as well as the reasons for which praises are used. For
this purpose, the research targets a sample of 80 subjects, who are students at the various specialties of
the Educational Sciences domain; the sample was taken with the purpose of obtaining relevant data on
the ability of the future teachers to use techniques and tools which are specific to class management in
an efficient manner.
Keywords: praises, class management, education, control, rewards

1. Introduction
Typically, any classroom management system includes praise. Justification for the
use of praise is found in the idea of increasing self-esteem of the child, as a basis for
achieving top academic performance.
Nowadays, one can speak of a real trend in the educated families with financial
resources to prepare children who are absurdly small for the tough competition in the
adult world they will enter: Parents make every effort to prepare kids for todays
global market demands. Adolescents of 16 years old go to career consultants, children
aged four take Chinese lessons and embryos that are still in the womb get stimulated
with classical music to increase their intelligence. (1, p. 129)
There is a scientific justification for the parents option of such rigorous programs
of study, that is called metaphorically time window...this is how researchers call a
humans early life when neural connections are formed. It seems that during the first
three years of life, children can learn effortlessly up to 30 words per day and can
imitate any sound from one language without any problem. This window stays open
for a few years, then, in the seventh year, it begins to close, and no later than the
eleventh year it is completely locked. (1, p. 135)
On the other hand, there is research that shows that parents feeling guilty may be
the main cause for the excess of rewards and praise.
Selfish hedonism of adults, the need of time for their own pleasures is redeemed by
what one may call bribe: pocket money, gifts, excessive praise, tenderness etc. We
want to bring to front Gilles Lipovetskis statements: The moment the informed
child-king takes a stand, who is a decision maker and prescriber, consumption
appears as a means to buy peace in the family, a way to forgive your lengthy
absences, as a childs right based on the pursuit of happiness, pleasures,
individuality.(2, p. 103)
In other words, praises are part of the device adults (whether parents or teachers)
use to achieve compliance of the child along with: incentives, rewards of various
kinds, punishments etc. Control, conformity, manipulation on the one hand, fostering
self-esteem, potential to compete, training, on the other.
If we eliminate the extremes, we get a reasonable space of analysis and discussion
* Corresponding author: Tel.: + 40 723 598 089
E-mail address: [email protected]

Emil Stan /Journal of Educational Sciences & Psychology

29

of the place and role of praise in child education.

Our research focused on the students attending Pedagogy for primary and preschool education at the Petroleum-Gas University of Ploie ti. Because classroom
management is rather new in Romanian education, since this subject was introduced
in the curriculum for future teachers after December 1989, we decided to get some
data about a rather soft instrument among the techniques for student control - praise.
The research covered 80 respondents giving answers to three questions relating to
persons who praised them, the types of praise used and the reasons why they have
been praised. For the first question (name five people who have praised you), we
recorded the data only if a respondent received praise from someone in the family,
school, circle of friends or other people, so we finally obtained for each respondent
the types of people who have praised them and not their number (of people who have
offered praise). To this, we add the fact that we did not specify a time period to
receive praise, grouping people who have offered praise to the categories used in the
present study was after analyzing the answers to questions and we did not distinguish
between friends and acquaintances.
For the second question (list five types of praise that you received) and for the third
question (state five reasons why you were praised), we considered that the maximum
number of possible responses (400) is given by the number of respondents (80)
multiplied by the maximum possible number of choices for each question (5). In this
case, we were interested in finding out how often a particular response option
appeared in the lot of respondents.
2. People giving praise
In this respect, we were interested primarily in those people who have considered,
for various reasons that respondents should be / deserve praise. Predictably, people
giving the most praise are part of the family circle: parents, grandparents, sibling etc.
(fig. 1)
Persons which have praised the subject
120%
100%
100%
69%

80%

61%

60%
40%
11%

20%
0%
80

55

49

Family

Friends' group

School

Community

Percentage
Fig. 1. Persons which have praised the subject

All our respondents were praised by at least one person in the family, but most of
them were praised by several members, primarily mother and father (fig. 1).
These results allow us to make some observations about the type of family living in
nowadays Romania, but also (especially by correlating answers to different questions)
about the new trends in the evolution of family. Referring strictly to praise, we notice

Emil Stan /Journal of Educational Sciences & Psychology

a breach of the traditional teaching the child must be kissed only while sleeping,
which tacit pedagogy associated praise (generally rewards) directly with spoiling,
which was perceived as a bad thing.
It is worth mentioning the post-communist mentality of compensation that can be
expressed as follows: if I have not had anything that a child should have and I slaved
my life for this, at least my child should not lack anything. On the other hand, our
research shows that during the communist period, parents tried to compensate for the
absence of material rewards with praise or other symbolic ways of positive
reinforcement. Material poverty meant, unfortunately, a poverty of expression in
general, including affective poverty.
The circle of friends and school are two contexts sharing similarities, although
school requires a formal framework, with affordability and organizational limits,
while the circle of friends is rather informal. While 69% respondents were praised in
the circle of friends, 61% of them received praise at school (fig. 1). Since our
respondents were undergraduate students, we can say that in a large measure school
and circle of friends interact: firstly, school is the opportunity to broaden the circle of
friends and acquaintances; secondly, analyzing responses to other questions, we find
out that school offers several reasons for praise for friends and acquaintances (also for
family, unfortunately). At the same time, school uses friendships as external factors to
motivate, to educate - this is said by the formal representatives of the institution and
many researchers in education, who are described by Alfie Kohn as pop behaviorism:
Scholars have debated the meaning and traced the development of the intellectual
tradition known as behaviorism. What interests me, though, is the popular (or pop)
incarnation of this doctrine, the version that lives in our collective consciousness and
affects what we do every day. The core of pop behaviorism is Do this and youll get
that.(3, p. 3)
Thus, by appealing to the needs of membership/ affiliation, namely self-esteem,
students may be allowed to sit in class next to friends, they may be allowed to
organize themselves in teams according to preferences, and they may even be left to
decorate their own classroom.
Beyond motivational efficiency or inefficiency of these ways, recent studies (see,
for example, Alfie Kohn, Punished by Rewards) emphasizes the control and reliance
elements which are posed by such arrangements: What is the purpose of praise? As
with the use of rewards more generally, the real point often turns out to be a matter of
benefiting the giver than the recipient. If we praise people, they are more likely to do
what we want, which is not only advantageous to us in itself but also confers on us a
sense of power.(3, p. 97)
Unfortunately, the community is absent as a space for interaction between
respondents, a reason for which symbolic exchanges are even symbolic (only 11%
respondents were praised by members of the wider community: neighbors, officials of
NGOs or even unknown people). This shows, we believe, the dissolution of the
communist community and its values on the one hand, and the inability of the new
coagulation factors on the other hand, to initiate and promote specific values of a free,
democratic community. Maybe a justification is offered by the crisis of the
communities in traditionally democratic societies: For the individual, public space is
much more than a giant screen on which private worries are projected without ceasing
to be private or acquiring new collective qualities in the course of magnification:
public space is where public confession of private secrets and intimacies is made. (4,
p. 39-40)
3. Types of praise used
Another issue that concerned us was to identify the types of praise used. From this
point of view, if we refer to the research in the field we can assess the effectiveness of
praise, regardless of the grid of interpretation: whether efficiency in building and
strengthening of attitudes, skills, behaviors rated as desirable by those providing them,
or as efficiency in controlling the one offering praise over those who receive praise, in
order to achieve compliance.

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Emil Stan /Journal of Educational Sciences & Psychology

Perhaps it is not without interest questioning the following: does praise have a
value in them or does its value depend on the person giving it? Reviewing the types of
received praise, we undoubtedly notice their banality and abstract character, their
ready-made, character which makes them suitable to be sent to anyone, for anything,
under any circumstances. As a result, our assumption is that the value of praise is
dependent on the person giving it - the person gives value to the praise.
If our assumption is correct, we should distribute those offering praise in two
categories: persons with epistemic authority in relation to those receiving praise and
persons with deontic authority in relation to those receiving praise. In the first case,
the legitimacy of the one offering praise is given by recognizing a great skill, thus
the bearers superiority (5, p 61). In the second case, the legitimacy of the one
offering praise involves the existence of the belief ... that the execution of the
bearers directives is a prerequisite, essential condition for achieving the objective.
(5, p. 84)
From this perspective, we must accept that praise that matter (i.e., effective praise)
imply that there is confidence (emotional involvement, which personalizes the
relationship) or there is an interest from the praise receiver and the belief that
achieving that particular interest depends on following the directives from the bearer
of authority.
Unnecessary (inefficient) praise can be explained either by the indifference of the
one receiving praise in relation to the expertise of the bearer of authority (the one who
gives praise) - in our case, parents and teachers especially. In other words, traditional
authorities within family and school (parents and teachers) have eccentric skills in
relation to the childrens interests and needs.
Types of praises
66.00%

70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00%
18.00%

20.00%

5.75%

10.00%
0.00%
72

23

264

General
appreciations

Specific
achievements

General praises

Percentage
Fig. 2 Types of praises

If we analyze the types of praise received by our respondents (fig. 2), we find out
the following: the largest percentage (66%) was of general praise, representing typical
expressions, which have already entered into the collective mind as verbal stereotypes
- positive sanction: bravo, super, great, keep up the good work, did a good job, etc.
We can say that this kind of praise shows minimum commitment of the one who
offers, representing elements of general human interactions, quite unspecific in
relation to the alleged degree of involvement expected from family, school or group
of friends/ acquaintances. The answer from the receiver of such praise is minimal in
terms of commitment, often ignoring the received praise.

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Emil Stan /Journal of Educational Sciences & Psychology

Such praises are interchangeable and therefore worthless (i.e. efficientless). The
same is true for the type of praise that we call general assessments (18%), which are a
holistic appreciation of the person receiving the praise, counting (most often
implicitly) on the spontaneous effect of understanding praise by appropriate
customizations according to the area in which (s)he obtained (or hopes to achieve)
success. In this regard, we would like to mention: you are great, you are smart, you
are ambitious, you are hardworking, you are a special person etc.
Research shows that such praise cannot be operationalized by the receiver and
therefore cannot be understood as symbolic rewards for specific achievements; thus,
they fall into the same category of interchangeable praise, without any efficiency.
The last significant category of praise, the praise received for specific
achievements, is the least used: only 5,75% of the respondents received such praise
(fig. 2). Considering the praise in this category, we found out that they are made
according to a simple scheme: specific achievement requires general praise, reflected
in its application to that particular achievement. Here is such an example:
Congratulations... you got your baccalaureate, you got admitted to college, you helped
a stranger, on your answer.
Clearly, the one offering such praise (be it parent, teacher or friend) is trying to give
that moment (of realizing the achievement) emotional load that would make it stand
out in the series of moments the receiver (child, student or friend) is given praise.
The analysis of this category of praise reveals the following: praise was offered
after a significant achievement, as proof that success was appreciated and not before,
as an incentive or as motivation.
From this point of view, one can say that the intention of the one offering praise has
not been to control/ manipulate the behavior of the recipient, but rather to provide
reinforcement of behavior that was considered desirable. The scheme remains in
operation and it is that of pop behaviorism, with the limits already outlined by Alfie
Kohn, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, the authors of Nurture Shock: New
thinking about children: excessive praise impede motivation: children begin to
accomplish things only to be praised, losing the feeling of intrinsic pleasure associated
with the outcome, on the one hand, and on the other hand, ... praised students are
reluctant to taking risks and they do not have autonomy anymore. (6, p. 26)
The one who offered praise was less interested in the effort involved in obtaining
the assessed performance, providing a symbolic reward only when performance was
obtained. This situation is typical of contemporary families, when parents no longer
have the necessary time available for every day events in their childrens life. There
remains a question mark for school and teachers, for which the only justification
would be quasi-absolute domination of the specific mentality: pop behaviorism.
A final consideration: praised achievement is specific, but the assumed skills, the
effort are not highlighted by such praise, hence their limited effectiveness. It is worth
emphasizing that labeling someone smart (a general praise - emphasis by ES) does
not protect the child from poor performance. It is likely to be its cause. (6, p.18)
4. Reasons for praise
Thirdly, we were interested in identifying the reasons for which respondents were
praised, which led us to focus the analysis on the three contexts that emerged from the
research: family, school, group of friends. From this point of view, most praise were
offered within family, then at school and finally, within the group of friends (fig. 3).

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Emil Stan /Journal of Educational Sciences & Psychology

33

Reasons for being praised in various places

35%

31%

30%
25%
16%

20%
15%

12%

12%

5%

5%

5%

10%

9%

2%
0%

0%
Help

Personal results
Family

School

General praises

Friends' group

Fig. 3. Reasons for being praised in various places

The graphs reveal a relative homogeneity of the reasons for which respondents
were praised. Thus, the analysis of responses allowed us to establish the following
categories: concrete results/ achievements, help provided to others, general
appreciation of the person/ way of being. It is worth mentioning the compatibility of
these categories with the categories derived from the analysis of the data on the types
of praise. It is worth mentioning the low density of praise within the group of friends,
the lack of praise about concrete achievements, but the (weak) presence of those
offered for the way of being (overall assessment of the person).
Given the respondents answers to previous questions, naturally the most praise
was offered for specific achievements/personal results 31% within family, 16% at
school (fig. 3). Surprisingly, there is a small number of offered praise for helping both
within family (12%), but especially at school (only 5%). If respondents are not praised
for helping others, this means that parents do not give their children household tasks,
in accordance with the afore mentioned mentality, to give them what they had been
deprived of during the communist regime (i.e. when everything was missing). The
insignificant figure of praise at school shows the individualistic mentality that
dominates the Romanian school, much less open to work in groups or to multiple
projects involving: classroom, school, business, community, etc.
In terms of general praise, they fall into the category: I am proud of you, I like your
way of being, you are smart, and you are so good.
5. Conclusions
- perhaps introducing volunteerism as a prerequisite for college and university
applications would lead to increased interactions of the selfless type of helping others
(the one in need); unfortunately, research shows that positive reinforcement does not
create skills in this area;
- praise is used as habit (pop behaviorism) and often represents standard readymade linguistic expressions;
- because they are interchangeable, i.e. the same praise can be given to anyone for
anything, regardless of circumstances, such praise is not effective;
- praise should be specific, to reward actions and behaviors, to focus on effort
rather than on natural intelligence of the one receiving the praise;

Emil Stan /Journal of Educational Sciences & Psychology

- curriculum used in the preparation of future teachers (we refer only to classroom
management) should be redesigned according to the results of research of this type.
References
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Schrenk, J. (2010). Arta exploatarii de sine, Bucuresti, Editura Humanitas

Lipovetski, G. (2007). Fericirea paradoxala, Iasi, Editura Polirom
Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by Rewards, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity, Cambridge, Polity Press&Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Bochenski, J.M. (1992). Ce este autoritatea?, Bucuresti, Editura Humanitas
Bronson, P. Merryman, A. (2011). Socul educatiei, Pitesti, Editura Paralela 45

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